Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.

Walter only had one chance. He spun around, threw himself against the backdoor of one of the decrepit buildings that lined the narrow side street he had been wandering… and lo and behold, the door swung open!

A miracle.

Stumbling over the cracked doorstep he all but fell into the semi-darkness of a dank, smelly corridor, cluttered with boxes and broken furniture. This wasn't the first time Walter was on the run and cutting it close. He knew he only had a few scarce seconds before they'd catch up with him again.

This left him with two classical options – either fight or flight. Of course he was armed, the weapon he had acquired first thing after his arrival was heavy in the back of his pants, but one gun against at least three? So flight it would be, which meant he needed to get out of this house again as fast as possible, or it would turn into a deathtrap custom made for Mr. Walter Lewis.

Tripping over objects half hidden in the grime of the floor he headed for the building's opposite side, hoping to make it to the front door faster than Guerrero and his friends. Once on the main street he could probably jack a car, get the hell out of the city, find transportation over the border…

The backdoor behind him was kicked open. A second later a bullet whizzed past his knee region. With renewed horror Walter realized they wanted him alive. He had heard that his accomplices, the hamster men, had been tortured before getting killed. Now he saw his worst fears confirmed. Guerrero's abilities as an interrogation specialist were legendary. Vaguely, very vaguely Walter started considering suicide as an alternative to getting caught. So far, however, he was only down, not completely out.

With even more determination than before Walter threw himself against another door, bursting it open, ending up in what looked like the hallway.

Where Guerrero was already waiting for him.

Walter reached for his gun, thinking that maybe it was time for a certain final decision after all – when another miracle happened.

A child, a little girl of about three years, dressed up in a pretty pink dress, black hair loopies adorned with matching pink ribbons, came dashing down the staircase, completely unaware of the turmoil in the hallway.

… … …

"So you'll be babysitting this afternoon?"

The corners of Ash's mouth twitched upwards in a hint of a smile as he nodded, answering Isamu's question in the affirmative.

"Hombre asked specifically for you, didn't he?"

Now Ash was truly smiling. Babysitting was so uncool, girls babysat, guys did newspaper rounds, worked loading and unloading trucks or whatever… if his buddies knew that he actually was quite a master in diapering… but they didn't and Isu understood.

That's what separates best friends from mere buddies to hang out with – they don't tell on you when you're late because you had to give somebody a bath and fresh clothes. Luckily, however, Guerrero's son was long toilet trained by now.

"I promised to play softball with him", Ash said. "I had a hand-sewn catcher's mitt when I was about his age, it should fit him perfectly…"

So that was why they were on one of the warehouse's unused floors now, going through the boxes and furniture Chance had moved from Philippa's house after her death. The place was for sale now. Ash himself had insisted on putting it on the market. "I don't need a museum", he had told his father when he had asked what he wanted to happen to his former home. Ash also had suggested donating the furniture etc. to a charity, but they hadn't listened to him, had stashed everything here instead.

"Pretending your life with her never happened won't help you in the long run, dude. Your past always comes catching up with you."

Guerrero in wise old man mode. Ash had felt the urge to kick him back when he had uttered that pseudo-philosophical nonsense, but in the end had of course thought better of it and, disgruntledly, accepted the presence of the old stuff from the house in the office. This was the first time ever since they had moved it in that he ventured on this floor to look around.

"You used to travel a lot, didn't you? What makes you think your mom kept it?" Isu knew a thing or two about having to travel all the time and living out of a suitcase.

"She had stashes of things everywhere, sometimes only a locker at a bus depot, sometimes a whole garage. When we moved to San Francisco she gathered all our stuff at the new house. The mitt was special, a gift from someone who let us live at his house for a while, I'm pretty sure she kept it."

Only where, that was the big question… they checked the boxes first but came up empty-handed. Ash, never one to give up easily, moved on to the various cupboards and closets that had once filled his home. "Maybe in her nightstand…"

He had to climb over what once had been his mother's bed, now wrapped in plastic, no mattress, no bed sheets. The nightstand was wedged in pretty good between the bed and a closet, there was no space left where Ash could have stood, he had to lie on the bed and pull the piece of furniture's small door open from a rather awkward angle. There was barely room for it to open up more than a few inches. Grumbling angrily Ash pulled at the door more forcefully, shaking the whole thing.

Crack.

Something inside had broken.

Oh great.

Ash was not fond of the old furniture, but he didn't want to destroy it either. He pushed himself further off the bed to check the damage. Isu couldn't see what Ash was seeing as he peered inside the nightstand, but suddenly his friend's whole demeanor changed.

"What the…?"

Ash reached inside the nightstand and when he came back he was holding a gun in his hand. A heavy-calibered gun that had been hidden behind a false bottom.

His mother had had a hidden gun in her nightstand.

First a knife and now a hidden gun?

A hidden gun?